Before their afternoon performance, join Moving Spirits of an all-level workshop to teach the basics of dance through the African Diaspora.

Length: 30 minutes

Cookware transforms raw foodstuffs into cooked dishes, signaling the transformation of nature, clay or iron, to culture as a vessel or tool. As such these vessels can be seen to have had power or agency, best epitomized in Western epistemes via Hamlet’s three witches’ chant, “Double double toil and trouble…Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” or in the tools and vessels used in African Diaspora religions, the conjure pots: including ìgbá/assentos/ fundamentos, nganga/prenda, and the opon Ifá and iroke Ifá, (the Babalawo’s divination tray and wand). Yet, in everyday usage, the intrinsic value of culinary or tabletop vessels is based on form and function located in their utility, craft, or aesthetics and not ritual power. Customarily we critique their beauty and functionality, not their role as visual/cultural texts. This talk interrogates the semiotics of material cultural artifacts imbued in several 19th century English and Low Country vessels created by makers such as Josiah Wedgwood, Enoch Wood, and enslaved David Drake, that have a tacit racialized agency, linguistic messaging, or symbolic signs above and beyond their utilitarian functionality. Consider that a “sign” is something that stands for something else, just as seeing smoke alerts us that fire is or was present. The creation of “transferware” fostered the production and circulation of affordable ceramics sometimes enhanced with texts. Unpacking this explicit messaging included in everyday culinary material objects may refer to both explicit/implicit paradigms in need of alteration or evisceration.

Length: 30 minutes

Dennis McNett, an internationally-renowned artist whose work includes masks, installations, performance pieces, sculptures, and wood carvings, will discuss his 15-day residency and conversations with Gullah Geechee artists. McNett will discuss the inspiration and influences of the work, ceremony, and memorial processional that will take place at 1 p.m. at 5th and Main. Characters include Mama Watta, vultures, and owl puppets, with performance work by local artists. Audience members will be invited to take part in the processional and offering table which will end on the Town Green at 1:30 p.m.

Length: 60 minutes

The Gullah Geechee know survival. Now is the time to know their stories. This presentation presents an overview of Black/African American-centered cultural and heritage preservation models, exploring how best practices might inform a collaborative model of Gullah Geechee cultural preservation – led by the culture, stewarded by the culture, and sustained by the culture. Using examples from previous projects, I examine how oral histories, participatory community mapping, placemaking efforts, and digital archives can support the preservation and celebration of the Gullah Geechee culture. In addition, I will explore how the establishment of collaborative, community-led efforts can promote empowerment and cohesiveness in the wake of competing pressures that threaten the survival of the Gullah Geechee, such as gentrification, appropriation, and displacement.

Length: 30 minutes